Co-operative Threat Reduction: The View from Washington

When the Soviet Union collapsed, ending the Cold War, the world became a far less dangerous place. But not all the news was good, especially on the short term. Soviet strategic nuclear weapons had been stationed in three Soviet Republics other than Russia. Was the world suddenly to have three new nuclear powers with untested civilian and military nuclear control? And tactical nuclear weapons might have been deployed in several other former Soviet Republics. What was to become of them, or the chemical and biological weapons formerly under the central control of the Soviet Union?

Dr. Ivan Oelrich presented comments on the Co-operative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to the IIS Conference in Copenhagen, an ad hoc combination of programs of assistance to the States of the former Soviet Union. The CTR program is extremely broad, ranging from help building safer, tamper-proof rail cars used to transport Russian nuclear warheads to efforts to redesign Russian nuclear research reactors so they no longer need highly enriched uranium (HEU).